


delication

by helenoftroy



Category: Bridgerton (TV), Bridgerton Series - Julia Quinn
Genre: F/M, Smoking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-06
Updated: 2021-01-06
Packaged: 2021-03-15 19:42:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28569444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helenoftroy/pseuds/helenoftroy
Summary: “I do wonder often, Eloise, just what sort of thoughts are racing through that head of yours.”“One shudders to imagine, I presume.”
Relationships: Benedict Bridgerton/Eloise Bridgerton, Eloise Bridgerton/Benedict Bridgerton
Comments: 4
Kudos: 96





	delication

Benedict had something akin to bees in his belly as he made his way up his own front steps. The servants were long abed, the lamps long since snuffed, and an unsettling stillness had taken up its nightly residence in the foyer. 

It was little wonder the quiet struck Benedict as queer. The Bridgerton home was one of raucous action, what with four sons and four daughters, two of them still yet little children. 

And Eloise. Singular Eloise, a being vaguely thrumming with excitement, that immutable quality of zest made flesh. 

As he eased open the door to the back garden, Benedict steeled himself for disappointment, knowing she might well be abed. 

But Eloise, delightful girl, was there just as he desired, on her swing, cigarette drawn between her fingers like a quill, staring into the rose bushes, white and softly alive with moonglow. 

“I do wonder often, Eloise,” she blew a pillar plume of smoke as a greeting, “just what sort of thoughts are racing through that mind of yours.” 

Benedict tossed his coat to one side of the swing and sat down beside it, turning his body completely toward Eloise. 

“One shudders to imagine, I presume.” Eloise took a deep drag and passed her cigarette over to him on her exhale. The thing was still wet with her spit when he placed it between his own lips. 

It was almost more intimate an act than any undertaken at Granville’s party. 

“Oh, yes.” Benedict pictured pleasantly slipping just behind her eyes, viewing her innermost thoughts. Seeing himself, up close, having gone through the sieve of that keen writer’s brain of hers. 

He hoped he loomed large. He hoped he had a remarkableness in her estimation. 

“Where are you coming from?” She took her cigarette back. 

“A party.” He watched his spit shine on her bottom lip. 

“A party,” she parroted. “Sounds dreadful.” 

“Oh? And why is that?” Eloise licked his spit away. 

“Well, dear Benedict, I was not there to entertain you.” 

He stared at her for a moment too long, picturing just that. 

“Yes, of course.” He pictured himself dragging his fingertips along the bare curve of Eloise’s spine. He pictured wrapping his arm all around her and flipping her back to face him. He pictured—, “You are correct.” 

“As usual,” she preened. 

Eloise smiled, then cast her eyes down, lips falling along with them. 

“You know, sister,” he leaned over just to cast a tendril of disobedient hair behind her left ear, “I do count myself very fortunate to have you.” 

His little finger brushed against the cup of her ear as she pulled away from him. She laughed, darkly, deeply, at the back of her throat and fiddled with an errant bit of twine having sprung loose from the swing rope. 

“Benedict, you have the providence of the saints themselves. You’re rich, you’re a man, and you have _me_.” She grinned to punctuate the last word, flashing her teeth at him. 

Benedict could simply not peel his eyes away from her bottom lip as it first pressed into the top and then pulled away, defiant, to kiss her cigarette. 

She was breathtaking in profile, enchanting dark brows, lovely sloped nose, smart mouth. 

_Courage_. 

“Eloise,” he called. She looked braced for another pandering kindness. Eloise took a puff and exhaled smoothly, then took another in. “You have such pretty lips.” 

Her breath came sharply, and inward, and then out as she spluttered and coughed and gasped on the smoke she’d inhaled. 

“And who do you think you are, to be saying things like that to me? I’d thank you very much to not be practicing your ‘ _woo-ing_ ’ on me, Benedict.” 

She thinks it a lark, Benedict thought, watching her jab her finger at him and twist at the swing rope and puff greedily on her cigarette. 

“I mean, suppose I told you you had a,” she adopted an odious affectation, “handsome brow and,” she sent her shoulders into a mocking canter, “an exquisitely masculine jaw.” 

“I’d like that,” he said, wresting the cigarette from between her fingers. “Though I think I’d not like to be ‘practiced’ upon.” 

“Nor do I! Although I do pity you a little, it must be a trial to witness my fine wordsmithery and know you can never hope to match it. You must have been a dismal chat at this party.” She pretended to consider a thing, snatching back her cigarette. “Alright, Benedict. I shall allow you, just this once, to hone your rather deplorable oration. Impress me.” 

He was quiet for a moment, taking her in. 

“You are the most fascinating creature God has ever created.” He had long regarded Eloise, imperfect, willful, clever Eloise, as the very pinnacle of creation, though she was by no means the specimen of refined womanhood that most might think a lady ought to desire to be. 

Eloise had in her all the hellfire of a woman denied her due, all the excitement of truly living, the impropriety of it. 

“I do not think I should like to be thought of as a creature. Nor should any woman of the non-vacuous variety.” Eloise’s head on a tilt was enough to entice his heart to pounding. “Can’t you think of anything better?” 

_Eve_ , Benedict thought. 

Then he kissed her. 

She did not kiss him back. Instead she froze, still as stone, a victim of his Medusa. 

“Perdition,” he declared. “Forgive me.” 

“You taste of claret.” A shudder ran through his body. He gripped the roughspun rope and pressed his forehead into his clenched fist. “Benedict, what...what were you thinking?” 

“I was thinking of you. I think of _you_ always, and with the highest regard.” Eloise shook her head. 

“Say something true.” 

“I am being truthful. I am always honest with you, though not always earnest I admit. But you must know….” 

_I delight in the opportunity to bring a flush to your cheeks, to see the indignant little crinkle of your nose, I have long been soft in the head with want of you,_ was too revealing for him. It was a league more than honest. 

It was poetry, or the most floral of prose, El’s domain, not his. 

Though she resided multitudinously within the dear preserved pages of his sketchbook, he could not offer forth an admission worthy of a romance novel, without any assurance as to her mutual sentiments. 

“You want my confession, dearest Eloise?” His vision bloomed in watercolor patches, but Benedict saw clearly her lips. They followed her face which followed her head in nodding. “I should rather like to see you ruined.” 

“It is good of you to say.” Eloise’s shaky fingers brushed his jaw. She made a show of dropping her stub of a cigarette to the grass and flattening it under the toe of her slipper, her movement liquid motion. 

Then, _she_ kissed _him_. 

She had a tobacco taste, a little of his lips on hers. He was up off his swing in an instant, kneeling on the damp ground to get closer to her. 

His efforts left his knees wet, and his heart hammering, and his head spinning, and his lips in perfect union with Eloise’s. 

Benedict discovered an element of apple along her tentative tongue as she let her mouth inch agape, tartly crisp and ripe for consumption. 

Eloise’s hands carded through his hair and his own grasped her thighs, wanting to slip between them. He settled for the second place prize of slithering up her thighs, around her hips to settle one hand at the small of her back and the other at her waist. 

Her nails skated along his scalp, and strands of his hair being tugged with the motion summoned a low moan from Benedict. His fingers splayed along Eloise’s stomach so his little finger was just a deep breath away from the curve of her breast. 

Eden. 

“Someone might see,” she said as she continued to kiss him. 

“You are a very paranoid person, Eloise Bridgerton.” He pulled her down right off her swing, lowering her profile. She went without protest, knees coming down around either side of his body. From beneath her he could feel her breath, sharp shuddery pants, all the better. 

She stared at him for a moment, holding herself up above him. He made little circles on her hips, clockwise, counter-clockwise, clockwise, she continued to breathe, just staring at him. 

Her knees would be wet now. Counter-clockwise, clockwise, still Eloise staring. 

Then, Eloise dove in, bold as brass. 

Only El. 

**Author's Note:**

> i hate the word cigar :)


End file.
